


Fate Is a Dirty Bitch

by Sheryl_Holmes



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Crack Treated Seriously, Darcy is a conspiracy theorist, Dirty Limericks, Electrical Engineering, F/M, Fate is a dirty bitch, First Meetings, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, IronTaser - Freeform, Meet-Cute, Not So Cute Meet-Cute, One Shot, Questioning the premise of soulmark fics, Rated teen for language, Sassy Jarvis, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, The only pairing name I didn't use was TitaniumTaser because I think it sucks, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-13
Updated: 2020-02-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:07:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22693021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sheryl_Holmes/pseuds/Sheryl_Holmes
Summary: “Soulmarks are bullshit, and anyone who believes in them is smoking crack!”Tony had no way of answering that, despite having had those words written under his pelvic bone for the past twenty-four years.Or: the one where Darcy tempts fate.
Relationships: Darcy Lewis & Tony Stark, Darcy Lewis/Tony Stark
Comments: 22
Kudos: 571





	Fate Is a Dirty Bitch

**Author's Note:**

> Guys, I am but a sleep-deprived grad student who wanted in on an old trope. I’m not even sorry. I have never written a soulmark fic, I have never written a oneshot (other than a sad vignette that doesn’t really count), I have never written Electrical Engineering (although I freaking adore that pairing name), and I definitely have never written Crack—which is what I am pretty sure this is.
> 
> Oh, and be aware of minor spoiler warnings for The Witcher because, like, I make references?
> 
> Fucking enjoy, ya’ll.

Darcy was in the lab, wearing a purple beanie, black t-shirt, and jeans, gesturing wildly in front of Jane. Jane held her coffee to her lips, listening with an amused expression to one of Darcy’s favorite things to rant about. “I mean, the whole concept is ridiculous. I have a theory, and it can be summarized in one sentence!” 

The timing was interesting, because Bruce had asked Tony to come down to the lab to look at some of his most recent numbers on a joint project. Steve had already come by to visit Darcy and had unintentionally set her off, so he was currently hanging by the doors of the lab in a bid to escape when Tony came swaggering in, dressed to the nines in an Armani suit. The two men made eye contact as Tony caught the last half of her comment. 

“What is she going on about?” he asked Steve cheerfully. Steve gave him a dubious look, but it was Darcy herself who answered, spinning on her heel and shoving her finger into Tony’s face to make her point.

“Soulmarks are _bullshit_ , and anyone who believes in them is smoking crack!”

Tony had no way of answering that. Part of him was reminded of that episode of _The Witcher_ in which Geralt says Destiny can go fuck itself only to be smacked down with a Child Surprise. Most of his life, he’d found the words Darcy just spoke to be hilarious, but now that he was faced with their owner, he was suddenly incapable of speech. It felt a lot less funny now that he was in his early forties and still afraid of commitment, faced with a gorgeous twenty-something with a spitfire personality. The other part of him was wondering what in the glorious fuck he could possibly be about to say to her that would make her feel this way. _I mean, what horrible string of words must she have scrawled someplace on her body that would give her this sort of complex about soulmarks?_ he thought, still reeling.

But before he could open his mouth, stupidly, to ask that question, Bruce piped up.

“Darcy, c’mon. Soulmarks just _are_ ; saying you don’t believe in them is like saying you don’t believe in gravity.”

“ _No_ ,” she insisted, turning to Dr. Banner, “I agree that they _exist._ I _disagree_ that they are soulmarks.”

“Explain,” Bruce prompted.

Darcy looked positively gleeful, hopping up onto the bench behind her like a seat. “Okay,” she held her hands in front of her face and narrowed her eyes as if she were about to give them some great revelation. She sounded like a goddamn conspiracy theorist. “I have this theory—” _Oh, God,_ Tony thought, _she **is** a conspiracy theorist, _“—that they are just random words. For whatever reason, bits of conversation get stuck on our bodies. But people way back when wanted to believe in some kind of fucking _order_ to things, so they made up this fairytale about them being the first words your soulmate said to you. And like—who is to say it isn’t? Unlike Santa Claus, someone you’ve never met before, one day, actually _will_ say these words to you, and you _will respond._ But that doesn’t make those words, like, _powerful_ or something!”

“What about all the stories of people falling in love?” Steve offered up. But Darcy scoffed, her legs still swinging over the edge of the bench.

“Self-fulfilling prophecy, my man. People _want_ it to be their soulmate, so they work hard at the relationship to _make them_ their soulmate.”

“If that’s true,” Jane said, sipping her coffee, “then that would mean a lot of people are with people they shouldn’t be with.”

“Exactly!” Darcy snapped her fingers. “Think of all the people who talk about having never been attracted to that sex before, or how there was this huge age gap—” Tony felt himself getting sick, “—or how they met their soulmate in like, the last four years of their lives. That’s fucking _tragic!_ ”

It was true. Whether those people were their soulmates or not, feeling like you hadn’t met your soulmate until you were well past youth did seem like a tragedy. 

“Not only that, but there are all these people walking around with words like ‘Hi’ and ‘How you doin’?’ sitting on their bodies who will probably _never_ know who the fuck they were supposed to be looking for. I mean, if the universe so badly wanted us to know who our soulmates were, it would be more specific than that, don’t you think? _And_ ,” she wasn’t done yet, “then there are those folks who have fucking weird shit written on them who are convinced that whatever maniac introduced themselves with those words has to be their soulmate. And that’s just fucking uncomfortable.” _You’re telling me,_ Tony grumbled internally.

“Which is exactly why,” Darcy was continuing, “If I ever meet the smug bastard, there isn’t a chance in hell I will _ever_ give her or him the time of day.”

_Well, fuck._

Suddenly, something occurred to Darcy. The glossy, manic look in her eyes faded, and she found herself looking at Tony curiously. He felt _very ill_. “Hey,” she began, “Aren’t you Tony Stark?”

Words caught in his throat. _Yeah, no. I can’t answer that. Not fucking happening._ Instead, he gave her a thumbs up, hoping to God that she didn’t have two thumbs imprinted on her thigh or something as a result of that, and fled the room, not even trusting himself to give Bruce a bullshit excuse.

It wasn’t until he got back to his own lab upstairs that the genius felt himself start to break down. Granted, he’d had the words _Soulmarks are bullshit, and anyone who believes in them is smoking crack_ scribbled along the curve of his Adonis belt since he was seventeen, but for some reason it had never occurred to him seriously that the owner of said words actually _believed_ them. Or maybe it was more that he didn’t _want_ to believe his soulmate actually believed that.

And, despite being forty-one and very seriously desirous of his freedom, i.e. _not_ being in a committed relationship, he could also admit to himself that for these twenty-four years he had been desperately hoping to meet the woman who would change his life. In no small part, the reason he hadn’t wanted commitment was due to the knowledge that he would, one day, meet this very woman. It was at this point that three things occurred to him:

  1. He didn’t know her full name. _It was like—Darlene, right? Dammit._
  2. He’d waited all his life to meet her, had prevented himself from committing to anyone else. Even while he was romantically with Pepper, he had felt like it was only temporary. In other words, his soulmate was proving her own point by tormenting him. _Clever girl_.



It was the third realization, however, that really took the cake. 

Tony sat still, staring at the mechanical parts scattered across his workspace. 3: If he wanted her, she would have to fall for him… _before_ he ever spoke a word.

He would have to make her fall in love with a _silent_ Tony Stark.

Tony groaned. This was his worst nightmare.

***

“Hey there, Iron Man,” Darcy greeted him as he stepped into Bruce and Jane’s lab. It had been a good two weeks since they last met. He strode in wearing another suit (dress to impress), and he was carrying a tray of coffee. Bruce glanced up from his microscope, nodded in acknowledgement, then went back to work. Jane continued her struggle under what looked more like a tower of sheet metal than actual machinery.

Tony knew he had to avoid talking, so he’d devised a simple work-around the night before. 

“Ms. Lewis, Sir would like you to be aware that his larynx was injured by one of his experiments last night and will be unable to respond verbally for several weeks.” JARVIS’s announcement shocked Jane enough that a small bang and an accompanying quiet curse could be heard from under the machine, and Bruce leaned away from the microscope, blinking owlishly. A slow grin made its way across his face.

“Tony can’t _speak?_ ” Tony almost broke silence right then and there for the glee in his best friend’s voice. _Well, fuck you for taking joy in my fake pain_.

He tried to make his scowl speak for him, then pointedly took a cup of tea out of the tray he was carrying and dropped it into the trash bin. Unfortunately, this only served to make Bruce laugh. “You’re punishing me by taking away the tea I didn’t know you were bringing me? I’m wounded, Tony.” His sarcasm wasn’t lost on Tony, but the billionaire only glared, then made his way over to Jane’s desk, setting a black coffee on it. Then, hesitantly, he took several steps over to Darcy and set down her favorite latte (God bless JARVIS for documenting things like that). He winked.

Darcy stared like he’d grown a second head. “Dude—I get that you think you’re charming, but are you trying to _wordlessly_ flirt with me?”

Tony pretended to be hurt by the insinuation, throwing his hand over his heart. Darcy rolled her eyes and picked up the drink. After the first sip, her eyes grew wide. “I take it back, you are charming as hell.” He preened. “How did you know my favorite drink?”

Tony started to shrug, but JARVIS, the traitor, spoke up. “I have your coffee history well-documented, Ms. Lewis.” 

When Tony made it back into his own lab, he chewed JARVIS out for that, but the A.I. made a point of saying he was designed to be honest when possible. It sounded a lot like judgment, but Tony ignored his tone.

***

Tony really _could_ be charming when he tried, and he could reluctantly admit that it may be owing in part to his silence; he had no opportunity to say something offensive to his soulmate, which wouldn’t usually be the case.

She had taken to walking with him to grab coffee for the group, and even commented on how she hoped the coffee was soothing his throat. (He did his best to quell the guilt that would flare up when she'd say things like that.) He wrote her little notes and set them on her desk after having JARVIS do some intensive research on whether or not such notes would constitute “first words.” Since they didn’t, he ended up writing her an obscene number of dirty limericks. She’d read them to herself every morning, laughing her ass off at her computer. Today’s was her favorite so far, if only because it was a Tony original and a roast on Loki.

_There once was a god of the Norse_

_Whose brother gave birth to a horse_

_But that never quite fazed him_

_As much as when Darcy tazed him_

_Until his brother tried to take New York by force_

Darcy opened her email and quickly messaged him: _Is this a roast on Thor, Thor’s family, or Loki? And your anapestic beat is off._

BILLIONAIRE PLAYBOY is typing…

_It is so hot that you know what that is. And take your pick as to who I’m roasting. I really just wanted a limerick that highlighted that you’d tazed a Norse god._

When she had first told him about how she had tazed Thor, he had started to call her Sparky just to get under her skin (although he was certain she secretly loved it). 

They were getting along swimmingly. But Fate is a dirty bitch.

***

It was three weeks into Tony’s fake larynx injury that a real problem presented itself. 

That problem came in the form of murderbots in the streets of New York.

Tony was out with Darcy getting coffee when hell began to rain down on the city. It wasn’t that Tony was going to keep up the charade during an emergency, but in all the commotion, he hadn’t exactly had anything to say, anyway. He pushed her into a nearby building for cover and pressed several buttons on his watch that would send his suit to him. Debris fluttered in the air, screams could be heard outside. He knew the Avengers would be there any moment now.

“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,” Darcy was saying. She didn’t look frightened so much as shocked, but Tony didn’t like that, either. He looked down at her, his eyes affectionate and his expression open, and put his hands on either of her shoulders. Whatever kind, gentle, comforting thing he was about to say to his soulmate in her moment of need was cut off rather abruptly by a piece of debris being hurled at his neck as his suit crash-landed into their vicinity.

His hands dropped from her shoulders and went to his throat. 

“Tony?” she asked, frantic. He gagged, held up a finger, and gagged some more. He tried to speak but found himself unable to. _Oh my **God**. _Shaking his head and deciding to handle this particular problem later, he climbed into the suit, and tried to operate it entirely manually, since he couldn’t order JARVIS to help with fucking anything.

***

It was a long battle, but the murderbots were eventually destroyed, and their villainous creator intercepted by SHIELD. 

Tony’s voice, however, remained unusable. After the battle ended and he stepped out of the Iron Man suit, Darcy was somehow waiting nearby in the rubble. He heard Jane yell at her that she needed to take cover, and Steve in the distance replied that the danger was over. Concrete was everywhere, metal and pipes and destroyed vehicles. It was hardly _not_ dangerous just because the murderbots were gone, Tony considered, but that didn’t stop Darcy.

She was suddenly running at Tony full speed ahead and jumped into his arms. He’d stumbled back, arms wrapping around her waist as she locked her boot-clad ankles around his back. She had her face buried in his still-sore neck and was speaking a mile a minute—something about _worried about you_ and _your poor throat_ and _if anything ever happened to you, I’d strangle every evil genius within a thirty mile radius_. It was heartwarming, really, and Tony wanted nothing more than to respond, but nothing would come out of his mouth, so he just grinned back at her.

***

Back at the lab, Bruce was inspecting Tony’s throat like the good medical doctor he was, but he had a look on his face that screamed _suspicion_.

He set down the small flashlight and pressed his lips into a thin line.

“Tony, I don’t want to accuse you of anything here…”

Tony raised both eyebrows as if to say, _But…?_

“But you have been able to speak this entire month.”

Tony pretended to be insulted. He actually _couldn’t_ speak at this point, so he made a show of gesturing at his throat, groaning and coughing as he mouthed defenses.

Bruce rolled his eyes. “I _know_ you can’t speak _now_ , Tony. But this is a new injury. And there is no evidence I can see of anything having happened before.”

Tony shut up at this, although, technically, he hadn’t been speaking before. He glared at Bruce for only a minute, then sighed heavily. He shrugged, and it was as close to saying, _Okay, you caught me_ , as he was capable of at that moment.

“So, Darcy’s your soulmate, then?”

Tony blanched. _Fuck_ , it was hard having a genius for a best friend. The shock of having it said out loud to his face wore off quickly, and he responded by very pointedly avoiding Bruce’s eye contact. 

He heard the doctor chuckle. “Good luck with that one.”

Tony did look up at this. _Thanks for the vote of confidence_ , his eyes said. Bruce just gave him a crooked grin.

***

The limericks continued. The walks continued. The messaging continued. And it was all very flirtatious. Darcy had been saved at a rather frightening moment by Tony during the murderbot attack (exploding a projectile out of the air before it landed on her), but he had also been blessed enough to watch her suckerpunch one of the little machines in its face with a meanest right hook he’d ever seen. She was no shrinking violet; she held her own, even if it ended in bloodied knuckles. 

Sometimes it was hard not to tell her that he had become awed by her. He found himself trying to speak more often than not, and it was hardly good for his self-control that he had a physical failsafe. Even if he started to say the words, “God, you’re incredible,” they would get caught in his _actually injured larynx_ and get translated into a string of coughs. All the better; if he spoke, he was certain she’d hear the words she’d been carrying on her body all these years, whatever those words were, and suddenly hate him. In fact, that fear had begun to keep him up at night. Like tonight, when he had given up on sleep finally and wandered down to the lab in hopes of seeing her.

Shockingly, Bruce and Jane had actually decided to sleep, but Darcy had stayed behind to finish up a report. And when Tony came down, she ended up staying much longer. He silently whined about her typing up the report instead of giving him attention. Then, he had sketched out her face on the back of a sheet covered in algorithms while she ranked her favorite Weird Al parodies. They conversed by having him write out his snarky comments on a little whiteboard. And then there was just a long stretch of minutes where the silence sank into them and they stared helplessly into one another’s eyes. It was so romantic it practically made Tony sick.

Now it was around 3AM, and he was just resting with her on the lab nap couch. Slowly, in a move he thought was smooth but definitely wasn’t, he sank his head into her lap. Without questioning it, Darcy began to card her fingers through his hair.

Long minutes passed. Without thinking, with his eyes closed and, nearly drifting off, Tony heard himself say, “I love you, Sparky.”

Of course, it was the more than two months of mutism that had lured him into a false sense of comfort. He was convinced he couldn’t actually speak, so in his exhaustion-addled brain, an attempt to whisper that secret he was coveting wasn’t actually all that risky. Except that apparently since his last attempts to speak, which was perhaps a week ago, his larynx had finally healed enough to allow those scratchy syllables to take form.

Darcy’s hand stilled.

Tony found it hard to breathe, his eyes slowly opening back up to stare into her big, blue eyes. He swallowed hard.

And then Darcy smirked. “Took you long enough.”

Tony surged upward at that, unintentionally causing a collision between their two heads. They both swore. 

“How—” his voice cracked as he asked, holding his forehead where a bruise would inevitably form, “How did you know? And for how long?”

Darcy laughed, her face breaking into the most beautiful grin he’d ever seen. _You look like the sun_ , he thought.

“Dude,” she pulled up the bottom of her blouse to reveal the words _I love you, Sparky_ written in his horrible chickenscratch vertically on her ribs, “If the fact that you not speaking for a month didn’t give it away, then the handwriting in your limericks definitely did.”

Despite the headache he already felt coming on, Tony wanted to ram his head against a desk repeatedly. For a genius, he could be unbelievably stupid.

“Wow. Um…and…you’re _okay_ with this?”

“Okay like how?”

“Well, the words _Soulmarks are bullshit, and anyone who believes in them is smoking crack_ are written on my pelvic bone, so…” Darcy’s eyebrows waggled, but she didn’t answer at first. She stood, instead, and stretched, yawning.

“I mean, having the words, ‘I love you’ written on your body at the age of ten can make a girl think she’s about to get lied to. How the fuck could anyone know they love somebody when they haven't even met them yet?”

“That explains your conspiracy theory,” he replied hoarsely, and she narrowed her eyes at that. “But the question is whether or not you still believe it now.”

At first, it didn’t look like she was going to answer. She stood there, unmoving, seeming to be searching for the right words to respond to his question. Tony waited patiently from his seat on the couch, hoping against hope that she hadn’t just been stringing him along this whole time. Finally, she shrugged. “Tony, you had me believing in soulmates by the first limerick.”

Tony was out of the seat in a split second, wrapping his arms around his girl. He leaned in close, and whispered against her lips:

“Then I guess we’re both smoking crack.” 

He dipped her low, then, and kissed her through her laughter.

**Author's Note:**

> Anyone who wants to make fics wherein Darcy is even more of a conspiracy theorist, please do so and tag me because I'm DYING TO READ THAT SHIT.


End file.
